Contemporary art powering art market rebound, report says

Jean Michel-Basquiat’s 1982 Untitled painting sold for a record-breaking $110.5 million in May at Sotheby’s New York. Contemporary art is powering a global art market rebound, Artprice.com says. Courtesy of Sotheby’s

Contemporary art isn’t just hot. It’s propelling “a new era of prosperity” in the art market, according to Artprice.com’s global art market report analyzing auction sales for the first half of 2017. Contemporary art prices shot up by 9.6 percent.

The record-breaking $110.5 million Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa shelled out in May for an untitled 1982 painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat “illustrates a profound change in market attitudes: collectors are now perfectly willing to pay equivalent sums for contemporary and historical masterpieces alike,” the art market database’s report says.

Artprice calls this “a historic development in art history” as it’s the first time contemporary art has led a market surge.

Post-war and contemporary art accounted for 8 percent and 3 percent of auction sales respectively in 2000; today they’ve soared to 21 percent and 15 percent. During the past two years, contemporary art was the only sector to post rising prices.

Auction houses are finding it difficult to corral increasingly scarce quality post-war work, the report says. They’re competing not only with each other but with a growing number of museums for art.

“More museums opened between 2000 and 2014 than during the entire 20th century,” the report says, and another 700 museums with “international art profiles” are expected to open this year.

Overall auction sales are up 5.3 percent to $6.9 billion, compared to the same period last year, reversing two years of first-half drops from 2014’s record high.

The United States’ $2.2 billion in auction sales led the recovery, outstripping former first-place holder China’s $2 billion. U.S. auction sales were up 28 percent over the same period last year.

Most of the action centered in New York, where the Basquiat sold at Sotheby’s and Constantin Brancusi’s 1913 bronze La muse endormie was snapped up for a record-breaking $57.4 million at Christie’s in May.

China might regain its lead by the end of the year. Its sales typically pick up in the second half when Western markets’ sales usually slow, the report says.